A September 18, 2013 Boston Globe article reported that drug company Novartis will refocus on brain diseases and disorders. According to the article, "The Swiss drug giant has relaunched a division specializing in neuroscience, basing it at its giant research campus in Cambridge and luring a prominent neurobiologist from Stanford University, to take advantage of major new tools that are giving scientists greater insight into how the brain and the diseases that afflict it work."

A September 17, 2013 Fort Mills Times (SC) article reported that inventor and entrepreneur Eric Knight announced he has invented a possible Alzheimer's treatment. According to Knight, "Three-and-a-half years ago, I began working on an invention that appears to have the potential to remove from the brain the beta-amyloid 'plaque' associated with Alzheimer's disease. I completed my first prototype in 2010, and continued my research and development to the point where I could patent the device. My therapeutic system applies simple radio waves in a particular method via aerospace-inspired technology. So, in effect, I've applied 'rocket science' in a new and novel way to create this Alzheimer's treatment technique."

A September 16, 2013 Huffington Post piece by USA2 co-founder George Vradenburg focused on how a Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Health and Human Services program that digitizes medical records called Blue Button can "help caregivers and beat Alzheimer's." According to Vradenburg, "The delay in digitizing medical records certainly adds credence to the punch-line, but the proliferation of Blue Button technology marks an exciting watershed moment in American and global healthcare. The immediate payoff for caregivers will be felt nationwide, and the prospects for new Big Data approaches to research and treatment may provide answers to medicine's most mysterious questions."

Opinion

A September 17, 2013 Baltimore Sun (MD) opinion piece by Johns Hopkins University medical students Bipasha Mukherjee-Clavin, Carolina Montaño, Neil M. Neumann and Wan R. Yang argued that the effects of the sequester "are devastating for young researchers and delay life-saving medical advances." According to the authors, "The federal government is the main financier of biomedical research in America, and Congress is reneging its obligation to its constituents by cutting research funds. What this means for you, the taxpayers, is that fewer researchers may be studying and curing the diseases that affect you and your families, not just now, but also in the upcoming decades. We encourage you to urge your representatives to restore federal biomedical research funding."

A September 17, 2013 Staten Island Advance (NY) letter-to-the-editor focused on the negative impact of budget cuts on biomedical research. According to the letter, "Decreases in research diminish America’s innovative world lead, especially now when other nations rise.One example is seen in Alzheimer disease (AD). AD is critical because while human life span increases, there are no diagnostics or cures for AD. It affects 13 percent over age 65, and prevalence doubles every five-year interval beyond 65. These statistics are staggering, knowing that the number of people over age 65 will double by 2030, suggesting substantial rises in AD if nothing progresses.Costs for Alzheimer’s care will accelerate, straining our overwhelmed health-care system and bankrupting Medicare/Medicaid. Chronic underinvestment for research not only slows scientific and economic progress, but also jeopardizes our health.

Long-term care

A September 17, 2013 Forbes interview with Dr. Bruce Chernof, chair of Federal Commssion on Long-Term Care, "discussed the commission’s takeaways for Americans receiving long-term care, their children and their caregivers; why the panel couldn’t agree about ways to pay for the high cost of long-term care and what needs to happen next."

Why 2020?

USAgainstAlzheimer’s has retained its goal of stopping Alzheimer’s by 2020 rather than endorsing the goal of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease that calls for preventing and effectively treating the disease by 2025. While we support the national plan and its goals, we believe, as most every family touched by Alzheimer’s disease believes, that preventing and effectively treating Alzheimer's by 2025 is simply too long a wait for concrete progress. There are promising avenues of drug discovery and development that will, if successful, deliver a means of slowing or deferring Alzheimer's symptoms by 2020. By voicing the urgency felt by so many families, we will pressure researchers and industry to do all in their power to make that happen.